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Playing it safe may no longer be in the cards for Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne.

Former Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty joins Kathleen Wynne on stage to celebrate her Ontario Liberal Leadership appointment last January. As much as Wynne tries to recast herself as leader of a new government, the opposition continues to tar her party as the same old Liberals who have worn out their welcome after a decade in power, writes Star columnist Martin Regg-Cohn. (TARA WALTON / TORONTO STAR) | Order this photo

Ontarians aren’t big gamblers. Both at the casino and in the voting booth, we tend to play it safe.

Not our opposition politicians:

Tory Leader Tim Hudak raised the stakes in search of a big byelection day payout: He recruited Deputy Mayor Doug Holyday as his star candidate in Etobicoke-Lakeshore, gambling on a breakthrough in Toronto after being shut out for years.

He well knows that without the vote-rich 416 ridings, the Tories cannot take power provincially. To win, Hudak cast his lot with the forces of Mayor Rob Ford, who campaigned hard for Holyday.

Ford Nation cuts deep, but only goes so far. It didn’t help Hudak in the four other ridings where the Tories fell flat — notably in London, where the NDP stole yet another seat from under his nose. Out of seven byelections held since 2011, Hudak has won only one — and couldn’t have clinched even that one without Ford power.

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NDP Leader Andrea Horwath also took a surprising gamble by cozying up to star candidate Adam Giambrone in Scarborough-Guildwood. By campaigning almost constantly at his side and showcasing their every move on Twitter, she expended political capital on a self-confessed womanizer and liar whose ruthlessness and lust for power still alienates his fellow New Democrats.

The failed Scarborough gambit — banking on Giambrone’s notoriety and high name recognition — was self-defeating: It foolishly took some of the shine off impressive NDP wins in Windsor and London.

Premier Kathleen Wynne, unlike her rival crapshooters, hedged her bets for the governing Liberals. She opted to call all five byelections on the same midsummer day, allowing her to soften the impact of inevitable losses with predictable victories in two of the safest Liberal-held ridings (Scarborough and Ottawa).

But even the best-laid risk-reduction strategy cannot camouflage the hard truth: Memories of former premier Dalton McGuinty die hard — and keep dragging the Liberals down. McGuinty’s just-in-time departure last February didn’t deprive the Tories and New Democrats of their most profitable and profligate target.

As much as Wynne tries to recast herself as leader of a new government, the opposition continues to tar her party as the same old Liberals who have worn out their welcome after a decade in power. Wynne will keep downplaying the results as a mid-term protest vote that allowed people to send a message to the government without fear of the Tories or New Democrats taking over.

Indeed, on the campaign trail in Etobicoke, Holyday publicly appealed to traditional Liberal supporters to lend him their vote by sending a safe message to Queen’s Park. So was this a one-off protest? Or are the Liberals at a tipping point, destined for defeat in the next general election after holding power since 2003?

The problem with byelections is that they can mean everything and nothing. Turnouts are historically low. But the undeniable reality is that all five seats were previously held by the Liberals. They hadn’t previously lost any byelections in Liberal-held ridings since 2007.

That said, the opposition set up this week’s vote as a referendum on McGuinty’s misrule. General elections have a different dynamic: They force all three parties, and their leaders, to campaign for themselves — not just against the incumbent (or just-departed premier.) Against that backdrop, Hudak’s Tories and Horwath’s New Democrats will be compared and contrasted with Wynne’s Liberals — for better or for worse.

A bigger question is the timing of the next general election.

In October, we will have reached the two-year mark since the Oct. 6, 2011 vote that delivered a Liberal minority government, propped up since then by the third-place NDP. Until now, Horwath has been content to make minority government work, provided the Liberals enacted relatively progressive policies.

Going forward, the NDP leader can’t pull the trigger on a whim. For that she must await a confidence vote in the legislature, like a budget or a throne speech, to join forces with the Tories in defeating the Liberal government. There are no such votes scheduled until next spring, and with the Liberals licking their byelection wounds, it’s hard to imagine them giving the opposition any early opportunities.

On the morning after the byelections, the only thing we know for sure is that the two opposition leaders aren’t afraid to take risks, while Wynne prefers to play it safe. In future, the premier may not have much choice.

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